F1 Quals: China 2017

For a wonder, it didn't rain!  In many ways, that's great!  Fantastic!  Wonderful!  In other ways, though, it means that there weren't going to be any monkey wrenches thrown into the works and thing'll go the way they have for the past few years.  Here's the provisional grid:

Pos	Driver	Car	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:33.333	1:32.406	1:31.678
2	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:33.078	1:32.391	1:31.864
3	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	1:33.684	1:32.552	1:31.865
4	Mumbles Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:33.341	1:32.181	1:32.140
5	Smiley Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing	1:34.041	1:33.546	1:33.033
6	Felipe Not Retired Massa	Williams Mercedes	1:34.205	1:33.759	1:33.507
7	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault	1:34.453	1:33.636	1:33.580
8	Sergio Perez	Force India Mercedes	1:34.657	1:33.920	1:33.706
9	Kid Kvyat	Toro Rosso	1:34.440	1:34.034	1:33.719
10	Pleasant Stroll	Williams Mercedes	1:33.986	1:34.090	1:34.220
11	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:34.567	1:34.150
12	Kevin Magnussen	Haas Ferrari	1:34.942	1:34.164
13	Fernando Alonso	McLaren Honda	1:34.499	1:34.372
14	Sony Ericsson	Sauber Ferrari	1:34.892	1:35.046
15	Tony Snazzy	Sauber Ferrari	1:34.963	DNP
16	Stoffel Vandoorne	McLaren Honda	1:35.023
17	Lettuce Grosjean	Haas Ferrari	1:35.223
18	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1:35.279
19	Embryo Verstappen	Red Bull Racing	1:35.433
20	False Esteban	Force India Mercedes	1:35.496

Okay, yes Lewis Hamilton is on pole... again... but the gap back to Vettel's Ferrari is less than .200 of a second.  Which means essentially nothing, as it appears that the Red Cars have better race pace than single-lap.  I'm personally amazed that Bottas is .001 seconds behind... how can two cars be so closely matched?  Did the Finn turn a little too hard at one place?  Did he not get on the gas fast enough?  What???

The first four cars on the grid broke the all-time track record, set by Slappy Schumacher in 2004, of 1:32.238.  Again, that was the V10 era with practically no limits on what sort of aero protuberances you could have...

In other performances of note, Embryo Verstappen was dealing with an engine software issue when Sauber's Tony Snazzy did bad things to his car and the track barriers.  All he could manage was 19th as a result.  Haas's Lettuce Grosjean spun, suffered a puncture, then was dinged for not slowing down in the waved-double-yellow area caused by Snazzy's wreck.  He'll be starting from the back.

Everything else was pretty standard, which is pretty impressive considering the near-total lack of practice time on Friday.  All of this means we should be in for an exciting race on Sunday when the rains come... and yes, rain is predicted.  Buckle them there seatbelts!

F1U! will be along sometime on Sunday.  See ya then-ish!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:57 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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